Friday, February 15, 2008

Arena gear 4 piece set bonus changes

4-piece bonus on Restoration-spec Arena and PvP sets has been changed to "The casting time on your Healing Touch spell is reduced by 0.25 sec." (Was a 15% increase to the outdoor movement speed before)

4-piece bonus on Balance-spec Arena and PvP sets has been changed to "Your Wrath casts have a chance to reduce the cast time on your next Starfire by 1.5 sec." (Was a 15% increase to the outdoor movement speed before)

My take on this: Huge nerf to Resto, buff buff to Balance.

The movement speed buff is of enormous benefit to resto druids in 2v2, good benefit in 3v3 and largely useless in 5v5. A 2.75 second cast Healing Touch? Useless everywhere. Seriously, this is a mind boggling stupid change. If Blizzard wants to nerf the movement speed bonus due to the perceived advantage it gives druids in 2v2's, then at least replace it with something mildly useful - say +x healing to lifebloom. Maybe take the dodge rating bonus to rejuvenation from the Moonglade set. There's so much better Blizzard can do here.

The balance change, on the other hand, is a nice buff. The +15% move speed bonus was largely useless to moonkins. An occasional 1.5 sec cast Starfire is a nice bonus, especially considering any PVP specced moonkin is going to have the 15% chance to stun on Starfire. It's a good change.